Blackmagic Design has announced DaVinci Resolve 21 Beta, a major update that introduces a new Photo page, enabling colorists and photographers to use Hollywood’s most advanced color tools for still photos. We wanted to get a demo of the new Photo Page at NAB 2026.
In addition to the Photo page, other updates include new AI tools such as IntelliSearch for fast content searching, CineFocus for focal point adjustment, tools for facial refinement, and more. The Krokodove toolset adds over 70 new graphics to Fusion, Fairlight folders simplify audio track management, plus there are improvements to keyframing, MultiMaster trim passes, layer list node graphs, and more.
Key features
- New photo image editing now fully integrated within DaVinci Resolve.
- Support for DaVinci color control toolset and grading panels.
- Reframe and crop images at original source resolution and aspect ratio.
- LightBox view gives an overview of entire album with grades applied.
- Albums let you build, manage and tweak photos at source resolution.
- Direct image capture via Sony or Canon tethered cameras.
- Looks, LUTs, Resolve and Open FX for your images.
- Photo page is integrated with Blackmagic Cloud collaborative workflow.
- AI IntelliSearch lets you easily search for people or objects.
- AI Speech Generator transforms written text to spoken voice.
- AI CineFocus allows refocus with realistic bokeh and lens effects.
- AI Face Age Transformer lets you age or de-age a face.
- AI Face Reshaper for flexible reshape and resize of facial features.
- AI Blemish Removal to repair facial and skin blemishes.
- AI SlateID to read slate and populate clip metadata.
- AI UltraSharpen for high fidelity sharpening of moving images.
- AI Motion Deblur enables removal of common motion blur artifacts.
- Keyframing provides powerful retime controls with 4 point bezier.
- Fusion animation can be creatively driven by Fairlight audio.
- Native support for OGraf HTML graphics and Lottie animations.
- Spell checking, color fonts and Emoji for Text+ and MultiText.
- Smart bin views in Cut page.
- MultiMaster trim pass to grade single timeline to many deliverables.
- Render Magic Mask in place as an external matte.
- Node graphs can now be viewed as a layer list.
- Support for Krokodove motion graphics effects.
- New Macro Editor with inspector view and publishing to edit effects.
- Support for USD SDK 25.11 with Hydra 2.0 API for Storm renderer.
- Folder tracks allow a group of tracks to be folded down or expanded.
- Apple Immersive workflows now support foveated rendering.
- VR180 and VR360 deliver presets for Meta Quest and YouTube.
- Fusion adds Panomap immersive rotation and ILPD retargeting.
- Resolve FX Picture in Picture effect.
- IntelliScript supports Final Draft or plain text screenplay imports.
- Metadata panel supports star rating and tagging for clips.
DaVinci Resolve 21 public beta is available for download now from the Blackmagic Design website.
Photo page
DaVinci Resolve’s post-production workflow now fully integrates photo image editing. The new Photo page lets you import and manage photographs, integrating with the color page for node-based grading.
There are primary color correction, curves, qualifiers, power windows, and a node editor to adjust color across an entire project. Users can also use a DaVinci color panel to adjust multiple parameters at once.
DaVinci Resolve’s node-based workflow can now be used on still images. It’s possible to add nodes in series or parallel to build complex grades, apply different corrections to different parts of an image simultaneously, and use shared nodes to apply the same look across an entire album of photos at once.
The Photo page lets you reframe and crop images at their original source resolution and aspect ratio. Every adjustment preserves the full quality of their original file, so you can refine their composition at any time without ever affecting image quality.
LightBox view on the Photo page gives customers an overview of their entire album with grades applied. Select any image and grade it live while seeing the results update across the whole collection in real time. Filter by graded, ungraded, star rating, flag, and clip color for fast library management.
Albums let customers build and manage collections directly in DaVinci. Create albums based on shoot days, camera models, or any desired criteria, and save countless hours by tagging and making raw setting adjustments in batches. Albums appear as timelines on the Color, Cut, and Edit pages for easy access.
Camera Controls let customers tether a Sony or Canon camera directly to DaVinci Resolve for live image capture. Adjust camera settings such as ISO, exposure, white balance, monitor with live view, and save capture presets to lock in a consistent look before customers shoot. Images save directly into an album.
Resolve FX and Open FX plug-in support is available for still images on the Photo page, allowing customers to apply effects, graphics, transforms, and DCTLs. Customers can apply looks directly on the Photo page using LUTs, or generate LUTs to later apply looks in-camera or during monitoring.
You can access DaVinci Resolve’s native AI tools within the Photo page. Tools like the AI Magic Mask let customers make one-click selections of an object or person, and separately color grade different elements on an image. Or use the new AI UltraSharpen to upscale low-resolution images.
The Photo page is integrated into DaVinci Resolve’s multiuser collaboration workflow using Blackmagic Cloud. You can share the contents of albums, all associated metadata and tags, and all grades and effects with colorists, visual effects artists, and editors, simultaneously, anywhere in the world.
AI Face Reshaper
The AI Face Reshaper lets you change the shape and position of a moving subject. After detecting and tracking a face in a clip, use the AI Face Reshaper parameters to adjust the eyes, nose, mouth, eyebrows, and overall face shape. Manual controls let you fine-tune the resulting face.
AI Blemish Removal
The AI Blemish Removal tool is perfect for reducing the appearance of superficial skin imperfections such as acne, discoloration, spots and pores while retaining texture of the natural skin. Use the strength slider to adjust the intensity of the tool to better suit the subject in the scene.
AI UltraSharpen
DaVinci’s most advanced sharpening tool to date lets customers produce significantly clearer, high-quality moving images. Use AI UltraSharpen with upscaled videos to make previously unusable footage sharp in higher resolutions. AI UltraSharpen can also be used to improve or fix slight focus errors.
The Magic Mask palette now features a render in place option, allowing customers to cache a tracked mask as a traveling matte node. The resulting matte will automatically link to their active node, allowing customers to continue grading and applying effects in real time, with significantly lighter processing.
Nodes are listed in rows according to their number in the node graph. This typically results in a less crowded interface and allows for easier node management when adding, labelling, switching, locking, bypassing and removing nodes.
Pricing & Availability
DaVinci Resolve 21 public beta is now available for free download from the Blackmagic Design website.
